Reaction Post: Chapter I
Available here, here and here, though I'm reading it from my Wordsworth's Classics edition of 28 selected chapters.
1) Best Line
Why the Romans never conquered Scotland: The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe turned with contempt from gloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians.
I can imagine Gibbon writing this purely to wind up his Scottish friends and acquaintances. He claims of course that it is impeccably sourced from Appian and Ossian. I checked up on Appian, who says of the Roman conquest of Britain that "they took possession of the better and larger part, not caring for the remainder. Indeed, the part they do hold is not of much use to them." Gibbon leaves out that second sentence. The Ossian poems were of course 18th-century romantic fantasy rather than the ancient Scottish ballads Gibbon (and most people) thought them to be. (Samuel Johnson was an exception. Asked if he really believed that any man today could write poetry like Ossian, he replied "Yes. Many men. Many women. And many children.")
2) Summary
Starts by asserting that Augustus and most of his successors stuck to the boundaries which he inherited, apart from the conquests of Britain, Dacia and (briefly) today's Iraq. The middle third of the chapter is about the extent and training of the Roman military, in the context of a policy of non-expansion and defence of the existing frontiers. The last, and for me the most interesting, part of the chapter is a geographical description of the provinces and borders of the Roman Empire, going round the Mediterranean clockwise from Spain to Morocco.
3) Questions arising
I'm struck by the number of times Gibbon refers to freedom - six times in this chapter, four of which are related to Britain: The forests and morasses of Germany were filled with a hardy race of barbarians, who despised life when it was separated from freedom...
The various tribes of Britons possessed valour without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union.
[On the effects in Britain of the prospective conquest of Ireland] The western isle might be improved into a valuable possession, and the Britons would wear their chains with the less reluctance, if the prospect and example of freedom were on every side removed from before their eyes.
But in proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a trade.
Many dependent princes and communities, dispersed round the frontiers, were permitted for a while, to hold their freedom and security by the tenure of military service.
Before Britain lost her freedom, the country was irregularly divided between thirty tribes of barbarians...
Freedom is a profound obsession of Gibbon's, but I would like to have a better understanding of what it means to him: he opposed the American Revolution, he opposed the French Revolution, so one has to suspect that he meant the freedom of gentlemen like himself to continue enjoying their unearned income without hassle from their own state or by foreigners. He is in a sense trying to have it both ways: on the one hand, the light touch of imperial government assures the security of Rome's subjects and citizens; on the other, the loss of freedom through Roman conquest. I guess we will get more in the next chapter, but here he is setting out his stall.
Gibbon has a go at the Irish as well as the Scots, reporting Agricola's view that Ireland could have been conquered by a single legion with a few auxiliaries and adding in a footnote that "The Irish writers, jealous of their national honour, are extremely provoked on this occasion, both with Tacitus and with Agricola." I don't know which Irish writers he means; the more recent controversy has been a rather bizarre debate about whether or not a Roman invasion actually did take place. The line about conquering Ireland to remove freedom from visibility in Britain seemed to me rather too good to be true, but it is an accurate enough summary of what Tacitus reports Agricola, his father-in-law, to have said: Saepe ex eo audivi legione una et modicis auxiliis debellari obtinerique Hiberniam posse; idque etiam adversus Britanniam profuturum, si Romana ubique arma et velut e conspectu libertas tolleretur.
I have often heard him say that a single legion with a few auxiliaries could conquer and occupy Ireland, and that it would have a salutary effect on Britain for the Roman arms to be seen everywhere, and for freedom, so to speak, to be banished from its sight.
coth commented that the size of the military establishment is pretty huge given the resources - a standing army of 375,000, a total force of 450,000. That is somewhat less than 1% of the traditionally accepted 55 million population (though Gibbon doesn't give a figure here, and apparently that is considered an underestimate these days). It's in the same range of both population and military as today's Egypt, Turkey and Iran.
4) Coming Next
Chapter II, Of the Union and Internal Prosperity of the Roman Empire in the Age of the Antonines, can be found here, here and here. I hope to write it up on Wednesday (I am travelling all day though).
1) Best Line
Why the Romans never conquered Scotland: The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe turned with contempt from gloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians.
I can imagine Gibbon writing this purely to wind up his Scottish friends and acquaintances. He claims of course that it is impeccably sourced from Appian and Ossian. I checked up on Appian, who says of the Roman conquest of Britain that "they took possession of the better and larger part, not caring for the remainder. Indeed, the part they do hold is not of much use to them." Gibbon leaves out that second sentence. The Ossian poems were of course 18th-century romantic fantasy rather than the ancient Scottish ballads Gibbon (and most people) thought them to be. (Samuel Johnson was an exception. Asked if he really believed that any man today could write poetry like Ossian, he replied "Yes. Many men. Many women. And many children.")
2) Summary
Starts by asserting that Augustus and most of his successors stuck to the boundaries which he inherited, apart from the conquests of Britain, Dacia and (briefly) today's Iraq. The middle third of the chapter is about the extent and training of the Roman military, in the context of a policy of non-expansion and defence of the existing frontiers. The last, and for me the most interesting, part of the chapter is a geographical description of the provinces and borders of the Roman Empire, going round the Mediterranean clockwise from Spain to Morocco.
3) Questions arising
I'm struck by the number of times Gibbon refers to freedom - six times in this chapter, four of which are related to Britain: The forests and morasses of Germany were filled with a hardy race of barbarians, who despised life when it was separated from freedom...
The various tribes of Britons possessed valour without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union.
[On the effects in Britain of the prospective conquest of Ireland] The western isle might be improved into a valuable possession, and the Britons would wear their chains with the less reluctance, if the prospect and example of freedom were on every side removed from before their eyes.
But in proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a trade.
Many dependent princes and communities, dispersed round the frontiers, were permitted for a while, to hold their freedom and security by the tenure of military service.
Before Britain lost her freedom, the country was irregularly divided between thirty tribes of barbarians...
Freedom is a profound obsession of Gibbon's, but I would like to have a better understanding of what it means to him: he opposed the American Revolution, he opposed the French Revolution, so one has to suspect that he meant the freedom of gentlemen like himself to continue enjoying their unearned income without hassle from their own state or by foreigners. He is in a sense trying to have it both ways: on the one hand, the light touch of imperial government assures the security of Rome's subjects and citizens; on the other, the loss of freedom through Roman conquest. I guess we will get more in the next chapter, but here he is setting out his stall.
Gibbon has a go at the Irish as well as the Scots, reporting Agricola's view that Ireland could have been conquered by a single legion with a few auxiliaries and adding in a footnote that "The Irish writers, jealous of their national honour, are extremely provoked on this occasion, both with Tacitus and with Agricola." I don't know which Irish writers he means; the more recent controversy has been a rather bizarre debate about whether or not a Roman invasion actually did take place. The line about conquering Ireland to remove freedom from visibility in Britain seemed to me rather too good to be true, but it is an accurate enough summary of what Tacitus reports Agricola, his father-in-law, to have said: Saepe ex eo audivi legione una et modicis auxiliis debellari obtinerique Hiberniam posse; idque etiam adversus Britanniam profuturum, si Romana ubique arma et velut e conspectu libertas tolleretur.
I have often heard him say that a single legion with a few auxiliaries could conquer and occupy Ireland, and that it would have a salutary effect on Britain for the Roman arms to be seen everywhere, and for freedom, so to speak, to be banished from its sight.
coth commented that the size of the military establishment is pretty huge given the resources - a standing army of 375,000, a total force of 450,000. That is somewhat less than 1% of the traditionally accepted 55 million population (though Gibbon doesn't give a figure here, and apparently that is considered an underestimate these days). It's in the same range of both population and military as today's Egypt, Turkey and Iran.
4) Coming Next
Chapter II, Of the Union and Internal Prosperity of the Roman Empire in the Age of the Antonines, can be found here, here and here. I hope to write it up on Wednesday (I am travelling all day though).